Miss Behavior

Poor Miss Claire has had a problem with her brother for a long time now. Sam is a friendly Saint Bernard of a boy. If Claire is playing with a toy, Sam will want to play along and will crawl over and take the toy away. Sam might be excited to even have a sister, so he (in a good natured way) will grab Claire's nose or pound on the top of her head. If Claire is in the way of Sam's destination, he will run over her like a little boy tank.

Claire does not have the gross motor skills Sam does, so she often saw Sam's interaction with her as a threat. Her defense mechanism has been to scream and cry whenever Sam comes within a foot of her. As she grew more confident and coordinated, she developed other defenses. If Sam tries to take a toy from her, she will grab onto it with both hands preventing Sam from wresting it from her control. On other occasions she will let Sam take the toy and then, when his attention wanders, take it back. We have also seen her tense up and hiss at Sam like an angry cat. Over the past three months, these behaviors resulted in a sort of equilibrium. As long as Claire isn't overly tired, she is able to live peacefully with her oafish brother.

...Until Friday. Sam and Claire were playing with their weird musical dancing bugs with their mom when Claire grabed Sam's hand, brought it to her mouth and bit down. Neither mom nor Sam were expecting this. Sam crumpled into a mass of tears and hysteria. It took thirty minutes for him to calm down. She didn't draw blood, but she did leave marks. It might be that we are watching more carefully, but she seems a bit more assertive around her brother the past couple of days. She takes toys from him. She pushes him away when he approaches. She hasn't bitten him again... yet. She has bitten the top off the nipple of her bottle. And she did grab her brother's hand again with a glint in her eye.

Lynn is going to the Mother of Twins meeting on progressive discipline on Monday night. We will keep you informed.